The Voice UK, semi-final, BBC One, review

Florence Waters reviews the semi-final of The Voice UK.

The big question might have been: would TV audiences make it through The Voice’s drearily conventional marathon round of live semi-final performances? The singing is by now generally quite nice, and the judges were, as ever, ridiculously nice. But no TV talent show ever survived on niceness alone, without a dose of jeopardy.

Thankfully, premature iTunes chart success for one of the semi-finalists threw a curve-ball into the proceedings. With Leah McFall looking likely to achieve the show's first Top 10 single with her cover of I Will Survive, it looked like the whole thing was a foregone conclusion. However, luckily even in painfully nice singing competitions like these, performances are affected by what is known in the game as sport psychology. The most moving and compelling moment of the night was actually when McFall's quiet competitor Cleo Higgins took to the stage throwing all caution to the wind and belting out En Vogue's Don’t Let Go with the kind of finger-up bravado that only a willing loser is capable of. On chutzpah alone, it almost – almost – swayed this reviewer.

But McFall was the right decision for the final. Dizzier than Bjork, kookier than Jessie J (the singer’s advice to her this week was to “be riskier” which sounds a little bit like what Cher said in Clueless when Tai became popular) she’s hands down the only one of the eight with enough vim to have a crack at pop-stardom.

McFall is undeniably furlongs ahead of her competitors. She knows it too - her outfit tonight seemed to have been recycled from a Formula One flag. She nonchalantly tore into her own boldly appropriated version of the Fugees's best-loved song Killing Me Softly (first written by Roberta Flack). Her mentor will.i.am practically had cream dripping off his whiskers.

As for the rest, we’ve become familiar enough with Ash Morgan’s tonsils not to be disappointed about not seeing him in the final next week. Apart from McFall, Andrea Begley is the most compelling of the eight to watch. There was something almost Gothic about her performance tonight: large human eyes peering out of a stiff Victorian doll singing, “Yeah, Yeah, God is good.”

I was sorry to lose giggly Joseph Apostol. He’s come a long way and his effort didn’t deserve this send off: “You just killed every other Philippine who ever sung that song,” said will.i.am. Now there’s a backhanded compliment if I ever heard one.